Thanks. It's Tuesday.

My toes tapped in my shoes and my knees bounced up and down under the table like an over-caffeinated teen.  I tried to keep the exposed parts of me calm, but my fingers fidgeted with my rings and I found it impossible to remain still.  I stared deeply into his eyes for a few seconds at a time, desperate to find enough comfort to drown out the thoughts screaming in my head.  I just needed for everything around me to pause so I could catch my breath.  

It was the clinking of forks from the table of people eating next to us.  

It was the laughter of the men sitting at the bar behind me.  

It was the sounds of cooking and conversation between the chefs in the kitchen to my right.  

I couldn’t concentrate with all of the noise distracting me and the inability to control the things around me.  

The door leading to the rainy night beyond the glass windows behind him, swung open and my skin rose with goosebumps as a gust of cold wind rushed in and hit me.  I looked at him, staring back at me.  His mouth was moving, but I couldn’t focus enough to hear anything he said.  

I wanted to cry.  

I wanted to scream.  

I wanted to jump out of my seat and run through the door and out into the rain.  

I wanted to cover my ears and squeeze my eyes shut as tight as I could until everything around me stopped. If only long enough for me to be able to think straight.  

I grabbed his eyes with mine and bore in deep, using what strength I had left to drown out everything and focus on him. 

He asked if I was okay, and all I could manage was a quick nod of my head and a forced tight-lipped smile.  He didn’t buy it.  The look on his face told me before he did, and it made everything worse.  I didn’t want him to see me like that.  

I stared at the menu, re-reading its few contents over, and over, and over, and over again.  Yet, I still didn’t know what it offered.  The words jumbled together on the page, and taking deep breaths and shaking my head didn’t make them any clearer.  My eyes welled up and I held my breath, willing myself to pull it together.  

“I’m still trying to figure you out,” he said softly.  Or at least I think that’s what he said amongst the radiating noise.

“What do you mean,” I manage to get out between breaths, biting my lower lip in a desperate attempt to keep from screaming.  

He couldn’t see me like this.  I wanted to disappear.  

“Like tonight,” he continued, “I’m trying to figure out this…” he trailed off into a pause.  “Unique mood you’re in,” he finished with caution.  

I let out a nervous laugh.  Just fucking say it, I tried to tell myself, but instead stared even harder and the space between us seemed to increase.  My toes jumped in my shoes with panic.  My eyes locked with his and I forced myself to say something, anything, because he was looking at me and I felt like a fucking idiot. 

“I’m having really bad anxiety right now,” I managed to get out just loud enough for him to hear.  My smile was forced and my eyes stung with embarrassment as I frantically blinked away the threat of a complete meltdown.  

He asked me why, but all I could do was give a weak shrug and bite my lip even harder. I didn’t know what had triggered it, and I was having a hard time tucking it back into the dark corner that it managed to creep out of. 

Maybe it was running into my friend working at the bar when we walked in and remembering that we both have CJ’s signature stamped on our skin.  

Or maybe it was before that, when we first parked around the corner and had to walk by the Japanese restaurant that used to be a music venue.  The thought of myself at 17 in the basement of that venue, sweaty in the crowd, watching my ex husband play the drums in the background as I willed him to notice me - if even just a glance. 

Maybe it was after that, after we had sat down and he ordered a bottle of cider for us to share, when really all I wanted was a glass of wine, but instead of speaking up, I chose to agree with him, because that was easier.  Because that’s what I was used to.  

Or maybe it was when I took my first sip and wanted to spit it all over the table because it tasted like mold, but instead I forced a smile and said I liked it. Because somewhere between the time when I was me, and the time when I realized I wasn’t her anymore, I had lost the ability to speak up for myself.  I had somehow learned to keep quiet to keep him happy, because it wasn’t worth the sleepless nights of his screaming.  

And even then, sitting in front of someone who was absolutely not him, I found myself still figuratively walking on egg shells. Because that’s what I was used to.  

And it made me so fucking mad.  My inner voice disappeared into a small whisper, and the sound of everything around me amplified.  

He wasn’t here, yet he still had control over me and I couldn’t handle it.  That moment, the most inconvenient fucking moment, when anxiety gripped me in its claws and squeezed tight, just like he would, I remembered that it was me who had allowed that to happen.

His expression softened and he said something about not understanding, but wanting to be there for me for whatever I needed, even if it was not to talk, but instead serve as a  distraction from everything going on in my head.  And even though everything around me was too overwhelming for me to hear everything he said, I felt the gentleness of his energy touch me from across the table, and everything else slowly disappeared. 

“Wanting you to know

Before things become overgrown

There are reasons why I am this way

Wanting you to know 

Before things become overgrown

There are reasons why I am this way”